Bill (Bilge49?), I stopped by the side of the road and had a chat with the foreman of a crew topping trees, cutting trees and brush, and generaly clearing the right of way near the roadside power line. They use fairly large professional equipment and fill a fair sized truck with their effluent chips. They were happy to bring a load a mile to my mom's house and drive 600 ft down driveway to dump the load. It made about 10-12 FEL buckets for my 46 HP Kubota. Made a lot of progress faster than I could with the 18 HP
chipper.
BUT... I love the
chipper so far and I don't know why my trees and limbs would be tougher than the next guy but when I feed stuff about as big as will fit through the chute it sure bogs the engine down and the chip size goes up significantly (still acceptable though). I tend to not let the largest stuff go through as fast as smaller stuff. I hold onto the limb so as the engine starts to load up I hold the limb off a tad and as the RPM begins to build I feed more. Works fine and makes me happier, whether or not it is neccessary. Of course yo feed the big end first so after a bit they usually have tapered down in size a bit and faster feed is OK. I don't recall all the specs and literature but I think the 10 and 12 HP units have only one blade so take one bite per rev while the 18 HP unit has two knives. If I recalled correctly that might explain thte bogging a bit, it would be doing twice the work per rev of the flywheel (don't know if they are "geared" belted the same.
It is a keeper. It isn't a high volume industrial tree eater for a crew to clear a right of way with but once I get more caught up with back log (unconscious pun) I will have all the machine I need and a litle more. Just the other day, between rains, a neighbor brougt a trailer load of limbs to me that due to weather delays had stayed on his lawn tooooo long and were killing his grass. It took maybe 15-20 min to process them and distribute the chips. So much for thoughts of renting being a better deal than owning.
Regarding the infamous juniper trees (AKA cedars, erroneously) If the limbs are fresh and they are wet, you have to keep a sharp eye on the output chute as this is one of the three worst clogging opportunities I have discovered to date. I can't say I ever got a clog witout lettting the pile touch or nearly touch the output chute but wet fresh cedar will ceratinly do it given the slightest provocation. Number two is little twigs which tend to form a mat/clog at the exit chute because some twigs will come out fairly long and touch the top of the chip pile while it is say, 6 inches from touching the chute. As soon as the first ones touch the top of the pile, others jam against them and so on and so forth. And #3 is just plain not keeping an eye on the output pile of chips and letting it bury the output chute. Simple solution to all of the above is to give the pile a kick every little while and then there are no clogs, at least I don't think I would have had a clog.
Clogs aren't so hard to clear, just shut down and when things stop turning (not to long with a fairly bad clog) reach up the output chute and wiggle your fingers down its throat till it... well reach up and dislodge the material in the chute and it falls out. I haven't had to dismantle anything to clear a clog yet.
More cedar commentary: I was warned that the cedar/juniper sap would gum up the works. It hasn't yet. I was told to put water down the input hopper while the unit was running to help clean the sap out but haven't tried it yet, not having experienced a problem. I have shoved a lot of cedars down in the last week with the FEL. Raise it aout 6-8 ft in the air and push on the tree. One of three things happens. It breaks off after the front wheels have left the ground and the branches on the other side cushion your fall and it gracefully rides the tree down. It partially uproots the tree, you get the same controlled descent, and you go to work on the root ball with the FEL, or you climb the tree with the tractor, front wheels way up in the air till the pucker factor proibits your continued aggression and you back off and dig at the roots for a while before trying again. I am starting to stockpile a fair number of trees that should make some dandy fence posts when relieved of their branches. I will strip the trunks with the chain saw and chip the limbs (and the nasty "leaves") reserving the trunks for posts. As the trees are 90-95% cedar/junipr that I am attacking, just now, I will get a chance to REALLY test the cedar eating ability but from experience to date do not anticipate a problem. If you let them dry a bit the leaves are less prone to try to clog but I don't think I will need to wait with my new chip a little, kick the pile, chip a little, policy. The larger of the trees I am pushing over are 8-12 inches in diameter and maybe 15-20 ft tall.
I guess I am being chauvinistic as I go out of my way to attack the female trees. My extension agent pointed out that there are male and female of these trees and that the females provide the litttle berries that the birds eat, coat with fertilizer, and distribute all around. There is more bank for your buck to attack the females first and come back to any males later when the rapid spread is controlled.
Regarding soon2b8's post: I don't know where he gets his balsa logs to chip with his 10 HP unit. I do agree with the hard dry limb comment. Much more vibration, way beyond a soothing massage for your hand.
Really old easily broken limbs which have begun to decay are fun... in goes a limb and out comes powder and a few small soft chips, almost composted. I did have a flat on a tire. Slow leak, hard to find but got it patched. Ran over a thorn probably. Likely, locust. DON"T CHIP LOCUST!! What a mine field that would make. I either park the
chipper where I want the chips and bring the limbs to it or take the
chipper to the limbs and put the FEL bucket under the output chute. A tarp would be a good idea too if you didn't make a pile too big to pick up.
I am making a no/low maint yard for my mom (85). She hoes the garden, plants flowers and so forth but doesn't mow lawns anymore. We are making a 20 ft or so belt around the house out of chips. It is working good so far but we are only 10% done (which is why I went begging for massive quantities of chips). I expect that once done we will do maintenance by adding a few now and then, easily done with this
chipper. We have had a few inches of rain since we started the chip-carpet project. You can walk on it right after a rain, no mud, very little sticks to you, weeds are reduced etc. SO FAR SO GOOD!
I'll never run out of uses for chips. Hope this
chipper keeps going like it has for a long time, again, so far so good.
Patrick
